Academic blog

 England: alchemical spy  Perhaps the most famous court alchemist can be called the English lover of secret sciences John Dee (1527-1609), who was in the service of Queen Elizabeth - according to some versions, he was even her spy on the continent.  Dee studied astrology and magic much more diligently than alchemy, as evidenced by artifacts that have come down to us, for example, his wax disk used for magical incantations (see Figure 3), as well as a quartz ball for divination and a witch's mirror.  <…>  Already at the age of 55, Dee met Edward Kelly (1555-1597), a magician and alchemist, who became his assistant: with him he tried to communicate with angels, and then went on a trip to Europe. There Dee and Kelly visited the main alchemical centers - Krakow and Prague.  In the latter lived the famous patron of alchemy, Emperor Rudolph II, who gathered at his court a lot of talented goldsmiths, magicians and astrologers. Dee went back to England, b...

 Feed the army , change sex and gain immortality: why the aristocrats of the past were engaged in alchemy  The AST publishing house has published a book by the cultural anthropologist and author of The Knife, Sergei Zotov, The History of Alchemy. The Journey of the Philosopher's Stone from the Bronze Age to the Atomic Age ”- a summary of the history of the Hermetic sciences. The Knife publishes a fragment about why gold-making from an art available to individuals has become a popular area of ​​knowledge, why Swedish alchemists needed the blood of boys and how stones in coffins were turned into gold.  In the XVI-XVIII centuries. in the territory from Lisbon to St. Petersburg, many alchemical centers arise. Kings and dukes, princes and ladies of the court, popes, bishops and priests have been unprecedentedly actively sponsoring laboratories or even trying to get the coveted elixir themselves.  By investing a lot of money in experiments, they hoped to get a lucrative...

 My acquaintance with the EBM genre began with an interest in such bands as Skinny Puppy, Hocico, Suicide Commando . It was their early works that caught on with a dirty and raw sound, from which they both nevertheless moved away, but nevertheless retained something in themselves, despite the rather great fame that came to them over time.  Once, in search of some performers of a similar orientation, I came across several very interesting VKontakte communities (it should be noted: the joy of this social network is that it provides access to a large collection of various music , which would be difficult to find outside of it, and for me it's like a breath of fresh air in our world of prohibitions and restrictions).  The first community is led, as I understand it, by the Frenchman Eric Braun, somehow connected with this kind of music, and he has good taste! This community is dedicated , as the annotation in the band's header says, to the curious who wish to discover dark, di...

For example, I assembled a rifle back in 2015-2016, a helmet and a gas mask - also before starting work on the film. In general, each of the members of our film crew did something with their own hands for the film and the hut, this also applies to the costume of the protagonist: for example, we made boots separately (but jointly) with our operator, having agreed about their length. He did one, and I did the second. The hut itself is located near the Strelna station and is open to visitors, you just need to write to one of us about our intention to visit it, and we will let you know where the key to it is hidden.  - Explain a little to the readers about low quality and folk topics. Have you traveled to Vologda to look at lace and wooden architecture or to Ustyug to see blackening on silver?  - I have long liked the image obtained with the help of any imperfect devices: cameras of the late mid-1990s or phones of the early 2000s. Such pictures seem to allow you to see something...

 I also have several works that represent a semblance of letters of thought, sometimes addressed to someone who no longer exists or who will never be found, but longing and sadness for them make the words pour out on paper, and sometimes it’s like running between burning trees and wild pursuit of that , about whom it is impossible to speak.  - About misanthropic walks and foundation art: you have been collecting the remains of history near the shores of reservoirs and ruined buildings for a long time - tell us about the most interesting finds (I would especially like to know about the sword).  - Hmm, a difficult question, during all these walks a lot of interesting objects were found, but if you highlight something, then for me it is a copper plate in the shape of a circle, about 1 mm thick, a silver pepper shaker of 1874, a porcelain figurine depicting a soldier and a sailor who are following a trail (however, the glaze is already so worn out that it is difficult to ...

 Song of the Lost Soldier: Interview with Artist and Collector Grecht, who paints with soot, buries swords in the ground, and writes letters to nowhere  Why are digital soap boxes a modern antiquity and how do they help to look into a world that has no name yet? What can you find during misanthropic walks along the shores of reservoirs and then turn into art? Why fasten cans to gas masks and write letters to anyone nowhere? This time the special correspondent of "Knife" Pavel Korkin talked with the artist and collector Grekht - about the wind biting the cheeks, about the rusty tumbler, about the weather vane of the future and much more.  Pavel Korkin: Hi. Tell us who grehtsteinmann is and how it all started. How and where did you spend your childhood? Where did the military aesthetics and the song of the lost soldier, extracted sadness, sadness and hopelessness come from?  Grecht: Hi. I got acquainted with the computer quite early and gradually began to get involv...